


aunts aren't gentlemen

by screamlet



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Boarding School, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Drinking, Featuring Paul Bettany as the Voice of Jarvis, Flashbacks, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Kid Tony Stark, Pre-Iron Man 1, Road Trips, Slice of Life, Smoking, Stark Family Fuckery, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 13:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3211589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“First things first,” Tony says. “I loved <i>A Knight’s Tale</i>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	aunts aren't gentlemen

**Author's Note:**

> \+ hello it's the 70s here's [John Slattery Howard Stark](http://www.mrporter.com/mrporter/content/journal/020311/theLook/galleryImage3.jpg)  
> \+ THANK YOU FOR THE READ-THROUGH **LANYON**  
>  ++ lanyon who also provided the title ([from a wodehouse novel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunts_Aren%27t_Gentlemen)) because her great work is never done  
> \+ [sorry paul bettany](http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0498784)

**UGH, MALIBU**

**THE YEAR 2000**

“First things first,” Tony says. “I loved  _A Knight’s Tale_. With the… music and the yelling and stuff, it was fantastic. You were great. These days I probably see like, one movie a decade. Seeing that? I feel pretty set for the next ten years.”

“Right,” Pepper says. “Well, the real first thing first: the NDA. We can start discussing the project once we have this filed away.”

Across the conference room table, Paul Bettany sits holding a pen hovering over the signature line. His manager and his attorney have signed off, too, but Paul waits. 

“I wish I could have one or two more hints about this project before I sign off,” Paul says. “The scenarios I’ve imagined so far can’t possibly be worse than the reality.”

“It’s a big project,” Pepper replies. “With a bottom line to match.”

“That’s what scares me,” he says. “This whole… Silicon Valley… thing…”

“We’re in Malibu,” Tony says. “Look. Don’t panic. I don’t know what they told you to get you in here, but think of the project, in its vaguest terms, as a digital personal assistant.” Tony holds up his brick-sized PDA. “Like this except it talks. It’ll be your voice and it will _not_ , repeat, it will _not_ be commercially available.” He looks at the brick again and says, “Also, if I make a portable version, it won’t be this ugly. Christ, what are we thinking.”

Stark Industries’s Lawyer-in-Chief, summoned from the dungeon where Obie keeps him every day but Halloween, clears his throat. “Mr. Stark, we agreed we would discuss—”

“No, _you agreed_ with _Obie_ that you would try to _convince me_ to market this to the public and I told you that it will _never happen_.” Tony leans forward and looks directly into Paul Bettany’s pale hamster face. “Me and promises are tricky but that promise, carefully worded, appears on page 16 of your contract. I saw it in writing because I made sure to _put it_ in writing: this will never be commercially available. You won’t become America’s Butler. I promise you that, okay? I promise.”

Paul nods at Tony and signs the document. Pepper takes the contract and promises to have the executed copies delivered to his lawyer’s office by the end of business. 

“Now we can talk,” Tony says, and he turns to his Lawyer-in-Chief. “Get out. We don’t need you for this.”

“Tony, I don’t recommend that you discuss this project without—”

“You know that building named after your family at Yale?” Tony asks.

“Harvard,” corrects the lawyer.

“I’ll buy it and burn it down,” Tony says. “So get out. I threatened Harvard with hypothetical arson. You better go look into that before someone tips off _People_ , Pepper.”

“I’m not doing that,” Pepper says.

Paul returns the very next morning to start work. They have three months before Paul has to fly off to New Jersey for his next role in a movie about a math genius.

(“And you’re playing…”

“Not the genius,” Paul says.)

Tony had a recording booth and studio built in the deepest recesses of the Malibu house. Of all the shit he’s blown the Stark Family Fortune on since he turned 21, _that_ is what his money manager calls “an irresponsible waste of money.” It might be because he had someone in the graphics department at SI mock up a cover for the pop album he wasn’t recording with Toni Braxton and Santana in that studio. 

To hell with the money guys: as Tony listened to Paul read, there were moments when Jarvis seemed—real. 

Not like real Jarvis, but the new—entity?—he had made. Jarvis the AI could think and therefore Jarvis had to _speak_ , though even speaking was broken and imperfect for the speed at which Tony worked. It was the unhappy medium Tony would settle for until he could figure out a way to install actual electronic components _in his brain_ that—hang on, is this how Red Skull happened? Yikes.

“Mr. Stark, I’m sorry,” Paul says, interrupting Tony’s train of thought. “I hate to sound like an actor, but I _am_ an actor so I must ask: is this working for you?”

“Wait, what?” Tony asks. 

“Would you play back what I’ve read to you and tell me if it’s what you had in mind?”

“Paul, don’t worry too much about it, okay?” Tony pulls the mic closer and says, “The whole point is to build up a lexicon first, and then we’ll work on variations in cadence.”

“Yes, I understand, but that’s cadence, not tone. Does the _tone_ work?”

Tony does play it back and listen, but he also watches Paul listen to his own performance. Paul cringes a bit, clearly hearing something that Tony misses, but actors tend towards spoiled perfectionism. It’s nothing he can’t buff away with Jarvis’s algorithms in time. 

Paul leaves his podium in the booth and comes around to the control side where Tony sits. Even as Tony leans back far enough in his chair to break the damn back, Paul still casts a long fucking shadow over him in the light from the booth. 

“I can’t help wondering why you wanted an actor for your digital assistant,” Paul says. “Ms. Potts has emphasized how important, how groundbreaking, your computer program is, but that doesn’t clarify what we’re attempting to capture here. What do you want Jarvis to be?”

Tony stares at him.

“Have you seen PBS’s _Jeeves and Wooster_ series with Stephen Fry? Is that what you had in mind?”

“Oh my god _no_ ,” Tony says.

“All right, not that.” Paul pulled out a pen and made a note on his script while he muttered  _NOT Stephen Fry_. 

“Jarvis was real,” Tony finally says. “If you couldn’t gather from, well. The name.”

“That would explain the half-assed backronym,” Paul says.

“I worked really hard on that,” Tony replies. “Whole seconds of my life to come up with Just A Rather Very Intelligent System.”

“And who was Jarvis?”

“My butler, believe it or not.” 

Paul considers it. “I believe you’ve built a sentient, thinking machine to organize unfathomable amounts of information faster than any computer I’ve ever seen and combined that with the limitless knowledge of this Internet I keep hearing so much about. The butler doesn’t seem quite so extraordinary by comparison.” Paul smiles a little, too, and says, “See I wasn’t _too_ far off with Jeeves.”

“Fair point,” Tony says. “Anyway, I had a butler named Jarvis and he was nothing like Jeeves.”

“I take it he wasn’t just a butler,” Paul says. 

“Hey, keep your projecting to yourself, pal,” Tony replies.

“You’ve already shown me Jarvis the computer,” Paul continues. “Incomprehensible math that you will, somehow, translate into words that will then have my voice attached to them. Fine, that’s why I’m here. Yet you’ll have to give me more. There must be some reason why you need my fairly expensive voice rather than the system generated tones from the queen of the dead that's loaded on every computer.” 

Tony sighs and drops his head to his chest so he can concede defeat in the face of FEELINGS.

“Fine. Let’s go upstairs to the deck, have a couple of beers, and I’ll tell you about this one time my butler, Jarvis, was everything to me.” Tony leaves the booth and leads the way upstairs, talking the whole way. “I don’t mean one actual time, or that he was actually _everything_ , because I wasn’t an orphan! I wasn’t alone! I’ve had the press up my ass since I was in diapers. I had my super famous and complicated dad, my super busy and complicated mom, Jarvis’s thoughtful wife who put up with me practically  _for free_ , and a bunch of spies who kept me from being kidnapped or murdered. They all had their own shit, though, except Jarvis. Jarvis, he _had a life_ , but mostly he had me.”

“And you had him,” Paul says. 

Tony rolls his eyes and already regrets everything. “This isn’t therapy, okay? This is work product, me providing you with background info to help you understand what I need out of my robobutler.”

“I’ve been told I give wonderful hugs,” Paul says. “Should this work product demand it of you.”

“I could throw you into the Pacific and no one would ever find you,” Tony says as they reach one of the house’s upper decks. Tony climbs onto the wide ledge, swings a leg over, and looks down at the cliffs and ocean below. “Like, from this balcony I could do it.”

“Get on with the background already,” Paul replies. “I’ve been told that time is money, so please. The feelings. Let me have them.”

“I bet I could throw myself into the Pacific and no one would ever find me either,” Tony muses. “All right. So, once upon a time, if you can believe it, I was ten years old.”

 

**THE STARK RESIDENTIAL COMPOUND**

**SOMEWHERE ON LONG ISLAND, 1979**

Howard had a dream, one he trot out when his family accused him of workaholicisim and short-sightedness, and that dream was a road trip. One day, he promised, they’d take a trip. 

He’d cancel everything for two weeks— 

(“Two weeks at _least_ ,” Maria would mime behind him or just off to the side.) 

And he’d buy a big ugly station wagon— 

(“The biggest,” Maria echoed. “The _ugliest_. The _waggonest_.”)

And they’d get in and they’d see America, _really_ see it, the way they hadn’t since the war. It would be Tony’s first time seeing the country, too, and then—

That was the end of Howard’s vision because at that point in his elaborate fantasy sequence, he’d be packed into a car with his wife and child and _then what_. 

Anyway, Howard never did take them on that road trip, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t send them on a trip without him.

“You'd visit and interview at six or seven schools,” Howard said. “You can take the plane. There’ll be a car waiting for you in every town.” 

Tony watched Jarvis take out the very, very, very slim pad and pencil he kept on his person at all times and carefully note the convenient and luxurious time they would have together (once Jarvis himself arranged it all). 

“Dear, did you forget that you’re our pilot?” Maria asked.

“I’ll get you another one,” Howard said, shrugging to show how inconsequential was his presence on _his goddamn plane_ with _his goddamn family_. “I know some guys. I’d trust them with your lives.”

“Real vote of confidence there, Dad,” Tony said.

“And you watch yourself,” Howard said to Tony. “You can’t use that kind of lip around these headmasters. You make trouble or get kicked out of any of these places and it’s Catholic school for you.”

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that,” Jarvis said with a sharp glance at Tony. 

“Why won’t you come with us?” Maria asked Howard. “Even if it’s not for the whole trip. Come with us to see one or two schools, all of us as a family. Each one can’t take more than a day. You can take _two days_ off.”

“There’s an oil crisis, Maria, and apparently it’s my damn job to find a way to end it without destroying an entire continent,” Howard said.

“Is this luxury road trip going to help, Dad? You know, with the oil crisis?” Tony was well aware that any minute his dad’s jaw would do that weird popping thing whenever he got stressed/furious at Tony. However, if Howard couldn’t even be bothered to come along and personally choose the boarding school to incarcerate his son until college, then Tony couldn’t be bothered to care. 

Howard lit a cigarette and stared at Tony.

“Maybe I think getting your attitude out of the house for two weeks is worth ten thousand dollars in fuel costs, _son_ ,” Howard said. “You ever think of that?”

“Howard,” Maria said under her breath. “Could you _not_ antagonize your own son for five minutes?” She glanced at Tony and said, “Tony, don’t disrespect your father.”

“I’M THE KID HERE,” Tony shouted at them. “Is NO ONE going to acknowledge that I’m TEN and MAYBE I don’t KNOW BETTER.”

“You’re too smart to be a kid, _kid_ ,” Howard replied.

After an excruciating moment elapsed, Jarvis said, “Master Tony, I believe I heard Anna calling from the foyer—perhaps it’s a delivery? That motor you ordered, finally arrived?”

“Thanks, Jarvis. I’ll go check on the imaginary delivery guy at the door,” Tony said as he left. 

It was summer and still light out, so Tony went out a set of French doors and into the garden adjacent to the Jarvises’ cottage where Anna was gardening. Fun gardening, not the boring-expensive competitive gardening his mother had done to the hedges every week. 

“Can I help?” Tony asked. “My dad hates me and I need to be kept off the mean streets.”

“The streets of Long Island? The streets of your family’s private, gated compound?” Anna asked. “Gloves are in the usual place.” 

Two handfuls of mulch onto the earth later, Tony said, “By the way, my dad’s sending us on a boarding school road trip with the first jerk pilot he meets at the bar outside his factory, and you and Jarvis might come with us, with me and my mom. Not Howard. Howard’s _busy_.”

“All-consuming bitterness aside,” Anna said, “It does sound like fun, don’t you think?”

“It did when I thought Howard was coming,” Tony said. 

“We all need some space to ourselves,” Anna replied. “Do you really think I like gardening this much?”

“Maybe you’re playing a long game,” Tony said. “Maybe these are all really pretty and then you’ll give it up one day just to watch them die.”

Anna, the most patient person in the entire house, ignored Tony’s commentary without a second thought (as everyone should). “I like gardening because Edwin’s terribly allergic and he won’t come out here for more than a moment while I’m working,” Anna replied. “You need space from your father and now you’ll have it.”

“Then I’ll be at boarding school and I’ll have even more space,” Tony said. “I’ll have space and a crusty roommate and no parents and no Jarvises. Won’t that be great? I always wanted to be an orphan.”

Anna shot Tony a look. “To think I was about to let you graduate to pruning. Go over there and start fertilizing.”

“I don’t have to be here! I can go inside anytime I want!” Tony said before he did exactly as he was told. 

As Tony was beginning to forget the argument with his father, thanks to the miracle of being elbow-deep in literal shit, pressed pants came into his line of vision and stood in exactly the right place so as not to cast a shadow over his work.

“I’m to accompany you and your mother on this trip, Master Tony,” Jarvis said over his head. “We’re to make good impressions at each institution and carefully review each one before choosing Andover for your enrollment in the fall. Of course, the choice is entirely yours.”

“Catholic school sounds better and better, Jarvis,” Tony said. 

“If you would like to make a case to your father as to your choice of local parochial school—”

“I would not,” Tony said. 

“Then we leave Thursday.”

 

**THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE**

**(LIKE 20 MILES WEST OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY AIRPORT)**

Tony had seen nothing but green, green, green summer trees for at least half an hour already. “Where are we _going_ , Jarvis?” Tony asked as he stared out the car window. He turned to Maria and asked, “Seriously, where is this place? Is it actually a school or is this where Dad told you to dump my body?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Tony,” Maria replied. Tony watched her light a cigarette as Jarvis brought down her power window from the driver’s side control panel. 

“When can I start smoking?” Tony asked.

“Never,” she replied. “It’s a terrible habit. It’ll stunt your growth.”

“Dad’s kinda tall, and you’re five foot nothing. Do you really think I’ll get any taller?”

“I think with a post-war diet of unrationed food and medicine, and avoiding things like smoking and coffee, you can probably edge out your father to 5’9”,” Maria said. 

“He says he’s 5’11”,” Tony said.

“He wishes, very much, that he was 5’11”,” Maria replied. 

Tony mumbled something and, of course, his mother asked sharply, “What?”

“I said you should have gone after Jarvis while you had the chance,” Tony said. “He’s _tall_.”

Anna, who sat in the passenger seat next to Jarvis, looked back at Maria and then they started to laugh this blessedly Howard-free laugh that rarely happened at home.

Jarvis glanced silently into the rearview mirror. He and Tony were exactly in each other’s line of sight. Jarvis didn’t belly laugh or cackle like his mom or Anna, but he had the smallest little smirk on his face as he looked to Tony. Of course, it disappeared when he turned on the look of butlery disapproval at full force.

“Is that any kind of conversation for a young man about to interview at the prestigious Merton Academy for the Gifted and Talented?” Jarvis asked. 

“Who cares,” Tony said.

“Master Tony,” Jarvis warned him.

Tony groaned and slouched into the leather seats. “What I meant to say, _Headmaster_ , is that I’m _really_ interested in robotics, science, and math. If I’m accepted to your prestigious academy, I’ll work real hard—”

“Very hard.”

“I’ll work the hardest I’ve ever done in my life,” Tony fake-sniffled. 

“He could have a career on the stage,” Anna said. “Regional, perhaps. He’s not yet ready for Broadway.”

“Anna, dear, please don’t encourage him,” Jarvis said. 

“Please, someone,” Tony said in his worst British accent, “Please do pay attention to me, for I am ever so starved of affection, attention, and, in fact, verily, truthily, I die here, in this car, from lack of love.” 

He fainted into his seat and from the corner of his eye saw his mother flick her cigarette out the window and adjust the scarf covering her hair. 

“I’m less impressed,” Maria said, looking down at him. 

“This is a tough crowd,” Tony said as he sat on the seat again.

“Because we’re not a crowd,” Maria said. “We’re only here in the nightmare of _God’s country_ because we’re trying to find the best place to occupy that bored, understimulated brain of yours.”

“I know, Mom,” Tony said.

“I don’t know if you do,” Maria replied. “I only have the vaguest guidelines from your father on what he’s wants from a school for you. Have you thought about what _you_ want?”

“It’s only school,” Tony said. “What’s it matter, one way or another?”

Maria said nothing. Tony could tell, from the way she tapped her fingers on her purse, that already she wanted another cigarette. (“So I can clear my head, Tony, please, give me a minute.”)

“It’s the matter of your education,” Jarvis said. Tony’s eyes snapped back to the rearview mirror because Jarvis sounded frustrated, like he was _losing it_ , as much as Jarvis ever lost it around anyone whose name wasn’t Agent Carter. 

“If your wealth and privilege weren’t enough to recommend you in the world, you are immensely, _incredibly_ intelligent, and to have you attend an institution without the resources to challenge that intelligence would be a waste,” Jarvis continued. 

Tony turned to look out his window again. The power window on Maria’s side came down again and she had that other cigarette. 

 

**MARK’S 100% AUTHENTIC ITALIAN CUISINE**

**DOWNTOWN BOREDOM, CONNECTICUT**

Two schools later, somewhere in Connecticut, Tony, his mother, and the Jarvises enjoyed dinner at a small restaurant in town when someone approached their table.

“Starks,” Peggy Carter said, acknowledging one half of the table with a nod. “Jarvises.”

“Good evening, Ms. Carter,” Jarvis said. “Are we in danger?

“Only in danger of extreme rudeness for not asking me to sit, Mr. Jarvis,” Peggy replied. 

“You’ll forgive me if I tend to duck first whenever you arrive somewhere unexpected,” Jarvis said. 

A waiter brought a chair over for her and Tony edged closer to Jarvis to make space for her. She sat between Tony and Maria, who typically would kiss someone’s cheek when she hadn’t seen someone in a while, but not Peggy. Peggy didn’t do cheek kissing or cheek pinching or Christmas sweaters or Easter baskets. 

“How was your visit to The Ludlow School today?” Peggy asked the table. “Do you think anything could entice you to return tomorrow for more information?” She looked over at Tony and put a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps with dear Aunt Peggy? Who does care so much for you, Tony, and has a great deal invested in your education.”

“You wouldn’t have come if there was any danger for us, would you?” Maria asked.

“Well,” Peggy said. “That’s hard to say. You’re much safer with me than without. Does that sound better?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Maria said. 

“Maria, it’s Howard’s request,” Peggy said. 

Maria stared at Peggy and said nothing for a long moment.

“Well, if it’s _Howard’s_ request,” Maria finally said. 

“Are you okay, Mom?” Tony asked.

Maria smiled at him and reached for the wine. “Why wouldn’t I be, darling?”

Tony looked from his mother to Peggy and asked, “Is that actually true? Are we—is someone coming after us? Did Dad ask you to take care of it? Are you gonna take care of it?”

Peggy leaned in and rested her hand on Tony’s shoulder again, this time with care so he could see her blood red nails. “Would you like to find out?”

“Please, Ms. Carter,” Jarvis said. “Not in front of the children. Child. Him. Us.” He sighed quietly and asked, “What would you and Mr. Stark have us do?”

 

**THE LUDLOW SCHOOL**

**SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS OUTSIDE BOREDOM, CONNECTICUT**

The next afternoon, the party of now-five returned to the Ludlow School, welcomed by yesterday’s charming and talkative head boy in his finest linen summer suit, today rendered mute and with a case of dry mouth when Peggy demanded a tour of the chemistry and biology facilities. 

“I thought Tony was interested in, uh, robots?” asked the boy.

“Do you want me to lecture you on the future of electronic enhancements to organic matter or are we gonna see some science?” Tony asked. 

The boy laughed half-heartedly and wiped assuredly sweaty palms on his linen jacket. “Boy, we could really use you for quiz bowl,” he said.

In the Ludlow School’s building named after a Nobel laureate (and, according to Peggy’s intel, war profiteer turned government mole, as _always_ ), the five of them followed their boy wonder tour guide around the building. Five minutes into the tour, Anna excused herself to a restroom. Peggy joined her, arm around her waist to help her down the stairs.

“Please, don’t stop on our account, I’m perfectly all right,” Anna reassured them before she dry heaved and rushed away with Peggy. 

The boy wonder tour guide led them through the corridors, most of the labs empty for the summer. Tony kept wandering to peek through the glass windows into the labs, looking at the available equipment and to see whether he could set his sights on the dangerous stuff Peggy was after. Maria would catch him every time and grab him by the collar or the shoulder, pulling him close so he didn’t stray more than a foot from her. Peggy had provided Jarvis with a long list of questions for the guide and any interfering instructors, but Tony was only half-listening. 

Somewhere downstairs, Peggy and Anna were raiding some room, a classroom or lab or office, working against the clock while the three of them (plus Bozo the guide) meandered up here and pretended that there was a chance in hell Howard would write checks to this place. In the few minutes it took him to imagine Peggy kicking an evil lab assistant in the face and Anna throwing no less than five people out windows, a deafening fire alarm in the building began to sound. Seven seconds later, sprinklers went off in the corridors. 

“Oh that’s not good,” said the tour guide. “All right, I’m sorry, Mrs. Stark, Tony, we’ve really gotta get out of here and notify someone!”

“What a good idea,” Maria observed as she pulled out her scarf and uselessly covered her hair. 

“So unexpected,” Tony said as he flew down the stairs, soaked by the sprinklers. As he ran out the door, he hoped to catch Peggy as she set someone on fire. 

Of course, Peggy was already outside, her arms around Anna and supporting her, both of them much drier than they who had been inside. “We came out to get some fresh air before the alarm sounded,” Peggy called out as the four of them emerged from the building. “Do you have any idea what it could have been?” Jarvis walked towards them and literally took Anna off Peggy’s hands, carrying her in his arms while Tony watched Anna hide her not-too-sick-or-pale face against his shoulder. 

“In any case, perhaps it’s time to draw this visit to a close,” Jarvis said. “Thank you very much for the tour, Stephen, and do give our compliments to the Headmaster on your return. We should return to town. Good afternoon.”

“Don’t you want some towels?” the tour guide asked before Peggy glared at him and disintegrated his dignity and his damp linen suit with her eyes. 

“Well done, everyone,” Peggy said as she put her arm around Tony’s shoulders and led them all quickly down the path to the parking lot, abandoning Stephen to the building alarms and a slowly flooding science building. “Walk calmly and deliberately. Let’s not get too carried away.”

“Peggy,” Maria said. “Next time, tell Howard to handle his business in person, would you?” She took a cigarette out of her purse, but it took her two tries to light it with her shaking hands. Tony wondered how long his mother had been carrying around a waterproof purse and whether it only guarded her cigarettes and lighter. 

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Stark, but Ms. Carter’s field training comes in far more use than Mr. Stark’s when handling these matters,” Jarvis said. “I assure you, we’re in most capable hands.”

Maria looked over at Jarvis. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this,” she said, the cigarette hanging off her two fingers like it couldn’t believe it either. “You’re in on this, too, aren’t you, with Howard? And Anna?”

“Perhaps I enjoy being carried, Maria,” Anna said. “In this case, it’s six of one, half dozen of the other.”

“None of you speak to me,” Maria said. “Tony, give me your hand.” 

It was a _don’t mess with me_ voice if Tony had ever heard one, so Tony gingerly took her hand. She gripped his fingers hard and dragged him along the path, Peggy and the Jarvises picking up the pace to keep up with her. 

“Am I missing something?” Tony asked. “I thought you were all spies for Dad. Didn’t you know? Weren’t you in on it, too? When can I get in on the fun?”

Maria stalked along the paths of the Ludlow School in her summer dress and heels, soaked from head to foot. Her heels didn’t dare squelch loud enough for him to hear, or Tony was sure she’d take them off and throw them through someone’s skull. 

“If your father gets himself killed, which he might at any moment if first he doesn’t drink himself to death,” Maria said. “If the Jarvises get themselves killed, and _Peggy_ and _her_ crazy family get themselves killed, then it’s just you and me. God. How could they be so _selfish_ ,” she said, more to herself than Tony.

“But we’re okay, Mom,” Tony said. “We made it out. Peggy had a plan. We’re fine.”

“ _Today_ we’re fine,” Maria said, but then she sighed. “Baby, forget I said anything. You’re right. We’re fine. I got scared. We’re fine.”

When they reached the car, Jarvis and Anna climbed into the front and Tony, Maria and Peggy got into the backseat. Jarvis drove out of that Connecticut hellscape possessed with an eerier-than-usual calm, considering he was Tony’s boring butler who had never done an exciting thing in his life. 

Of course, now Tony had to re-evaluate that theory completely.

“Your hair’s not wet,” Tony said to Peggy because no one was talking yet.

Peggy pulled some papers out of her jacket’s inner pocket and examined them quickly before tucking them back inside. “You should count it out,” she said to Tony. “There’s a lot you can accomplish in seven seconds, especially when you have a terrific accomplice.”

“Jarvis, drop me off in town at a bar,” Maria said. “Or a restaurant with a bar. The rest of you can join me when you’re hungry, I honestly don’t care.”

“Mrs. Stark,” Jarvis said, studiously not looking in the rearview mirror at any of them. “Wouldn’t you wish to stop at the hotel first and… dry… off? The sprinklers…”

Maria leaned forward and put a hand against the partition right behind Jarvis’s head. “ _That_ flusters you, Jarvis? Peggy Carter brings her and Howard’s dealings right here and puts Tony in danger—that you take on the chin, but the word _towel_ , well, God for _bid_ that should escape your lips.” She sat back and refused to look anywhere but out her window. 

Tony hoped there was a secret ejector seat somewhere that would get him out of this situation in the next three seconds.

“Maria, there was nothing to worry about,” Peggy said. “The labs were unoccupied, as we expected. This was a minimal risk assignment, not even an operation, and Howard—”

“You tell him,” Maria said without looking at Peggy. “Because you see him more than I do these days, and on more civil terms than he cares to use with his family, that if he _ever_ brings his business near Tony again, we will leave him. Do you understand, Ms. Carter?”

“Mrs. Stark,” Jarvis protested.

“Jarvis, don’t,” Maria said. “We’re not discussing this with Tony here.”

“Doesn’t that decision kind of involve me?” Tony asked. “Maybe I want—”

“It does _not_ involve you,” Maria said. “You are a child. We make decisions _for you_. He and _I_ make them, not him and _the office_.”

"Mom, I think we can stop pretending that Dad works in an office," Tony said.

“Howard wants him at Andover,” Peggy said. “It’s extremely secure and well-staffed with people we’ve vetted and worked with before. It’s the safest place for Tony.”

“I said we’re not discussing this with Tony here,” Maria said.

“So I wouldn’t have to go away to school,” Tony said, “If people weren’t coming after me to get to Howard?”

“I didn’t say that,” Peggy said.

“Then what did you say?”

“Your mother doesn’t wish us to speak on it and we should respect her wishes,” Peggy said.

Tony fell back against the seats and closed his eyes. “Andover’s not bad, I guess,” Tony said. “Nice that Dad thought of me at some point, even if only in a stupid business memo. And Massachusetts has to be better than Connecticut, right?”

Tony opened his eyes. Peggy stared out her window; Maria was still smoking out her window; Anna was curled up in the passenger seat, eyes closed and disappearing into herself.

Jarvis drove and checked on Tony in the rearview mirror. He said nothing, but those were his mother’s same worry lines etched into his face, the same sharp look as he tried to read Tony’s expression from just a moment’s glance. 

“I’m okay,” Tony said, meeting Jarvis’s eyes.

“Good,” he said.

 

**DOWNTOWN BOREDOM, CONNECTICUT**

As promised, Jarvis stopped the car in town at the same Italian restaurant from the night before, whose full bar could be seen from the street outside. Maria took off her scarf, fixed her damp hair, confidently ignored her mostly-soaked dress, and said, “Dinner’s at seven. I have a book with me.”

Maria looked to Peggy and said, “It was good to see you again.” She pressed her lips into a thin, firm line, like she wanted to say something else to Peggy, but it never came. 

Instead: “Jarvis, please watch Tony until dinner. I appreciate it. You can bring him over early if he gets to be too much.”

“We’re down the street from the hotel,” Tony said. “I can walk.”

“Jarvis, please walk him over yourself,” Maria said. 

“We will, Mrs. Stark,” Jarvis said. 

Once Maria slammed the car door behind her, Peggy exhaled and looked around. “Well.”

“Would you like to stay with us for the evening, Ms. Carter?” Jarvis asked. “We have a separate room from Mrs. Stark, of course.”

“The airbase, please,” Peggy said. “I should report back immediately.” 

“I’m sorry,” Tony said.

“Whyever should you be sorry?” Peggy asked. “Your mother is right and your father’s an ass. We wouldn’t have interfered with your trip if he hadn’t insisted it was a matter of urgency.”

“Why did Howard even want us on this trip?” Tony asked. “If he already knows I’m going to Andover? Why bother? Why waste this time and money? Why make us shack up in hotels and have Jarvis drive us through a bunch of forests if only Andover and this place mattered?”

“Who taught you the phrase _shack up_?” Peggy asked. “Surely it’s not allowed on television. Surely you’re not allowed to watch that kind of television.”

“You think I can’t build myself a TV? I’m not an idiot,” Tony replied. “Why are we here?”

“That’s a question for your father, not for me,” Peggy said. 

“And what have I said about calling adults by their Christian names, especially your father?” Jarvis asked.

“Hang on," Tony said. "I’m not the one who brought a secret spy mission to a school trip. Suddenly everyone’s jumping on me because I call him _Howard_? I don’t think so.”

No one would acknowledge Tony after that, so they rode in silence to the airbase and back to the hotel. 

At six, Maria called the hotel from the restaurant and asked Jarvis to pick her up. Tony watched from their room window as Jarvis helped Maria from the car into the hotel and into her and Tony’s room. 

“Jarvis, take Tony out for dinner, please,” Maria said as she sat on her hotel bed and let Tony unzip the back of her dress. “I’m not feeling well.” 

“Of course, Mrs. Stark,” he said. He had already set out a glass and pitcher of water, ibuprofen, and a trash can at the side of her bed. “Let’s leave your mother to rest.”

Tony sat on the end of the bed for another moment, wondering if his mom and Jarvis were going to apologize to each other. She and Howard’s arguments were business as usual, and Tony never saw when they apologized to each other or made up—but his mother and _Jarvis_? Who would he have left, if they were fighting each other? 

After a moment, Maria looked up and said, “Jarvis, I’m just so tired.”

Jarvis met her eyes and nodded, then put a hand on Tony’s shoulder and urged him out. 

 

**SOME SHITTY DINER**

**BOREDOM, CONNECTICUT**

Thanks to Howard, and thanks to _that day_ , the whole trip seemed to Tony an exercise in how much better Jarvis was at Howard’s job than Howard himself. Whatever Howard did day in and day out could get Tony kidnapped or murdered; meanwhile, Jarvis carried his wife away from fires (fires Peggy had started, sure, but still fires), made sure Tony missed the worst verbal abuse his father had to offer, even took care of his mother’s hangovers. Jarvis literally fed and clothed Tony every day and asked thoughtful questions about the dorms where Tony would be living and what kind of extracurriculars would be available to students in his year, with his interests. Jarvis _knew his interests_. 

With Maria asleep and Anna not hungry after a dozen upsetting conversations in the car that afternoon, Jarvis took Tony to a diner down the street. Tony wasn’t hungry either, so he ordered a Coke, sat across from Jarvis, and slouched low enough until his eyes were nearly level with the table. 

“You know,” Tony said. “There were a couple of times, when we were on tours and stuff, when the guy talking our ears off would ask us a question, and it felt like—like you were my dad. And I wished it were true.” Tony sat up so he could take a sip of his soda before immediately slouching again. “Then I remember that you’re on Dad’s payroll, so you’re bought and paid for. I’m just the job.”

Jarvis’s sandwich arrived. He thanked the waitress and pushed it to the side. 

“You’re right,” he told Tony. “I am your father’s, bought and paid for.”

And for the first time, Jarvis told him the story of him and Anna: arriving in Budapest during a brief armistice between Hungary and Britain; catching the eye of a shop girl holding up a tie to another customer (buying a tie when he had absolutely no need for one, and yet he did have such a need for _this tie_ ); finding countless excuses to visit over the coming days and weeks; the anti-Semitic violence in Budapest everywhere they turned; the bombs in the same week that nearly took out the hotel shop where she worked and the embassy where he was stationed; the _Casablanca_ plot devices that fell out of his commanding officer’s pocket and into his lap; his desertion and their escape; the journey back to London where they found the general and military police officers waiting for him, Anna, and the eccentric inventor-billionaire who had taken an interest in them.

“I am bought and paid for, Master Tony,” Jarvis repeated. “And to begrudge that would be to begrudge Anna’s life and mine. I could never do that, I'm afraid, not even for you.”

Tony slid out of his side of the booth and sat next to Jarvis. After a moment, Jarvis put his arm around Tony’s shoulders and pulled him close.

“Okay, so maybe my dad does own you, like he owns all of us.” Tony asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me that I should get out there and show them what I’ve got, not how much my dad’s got?”

“Well, no,” Jarvis said, sounding shocked himself. “When has that ever been my _modus operandi_? What would that achieve? Anyone who picks up a newspaper knows exactly what your father does and how much he has, and there’s little chance of overcoming that.”

Tony looked over at Jarvis’s abandoned-for-now club sandwich and asked, “Could I have one of your fries?”

Jarvis pushed the plate over to sit in front of Tony. “ _French fries_ with a club sandwich,” Jarvis said with the full weight of his disapproval. “The cook clearly knows nothing when it comes to complementary textures.” He reached across the table and brought Tony’s soda over, too.

“Jarvis,” Tony said. 

He hated how small he sounded. He hated how small he _felt_ , sitting here next to Jarvis, who even sitting down was the tallest person who ever lived. 

“What am I gonna do without you? Who’s gonna tell me what to do? Who’ll stop me from doing something stupid?”

“When have you _ever_ done something I told you to do?”

“Maybe I’ll turn over a new leaf,” Tony said. “I’ll go somewhere nearby for school—”

“If you think I would believe that for even a single moment,” Jarvis said. He cleared his throat and said to Tony, “You overestimate my impact on your daily life. I only make things possible.”

“See?” Tony asked. “Who’s gonna make shit happen for me while I’m there?”

“There are laundry facilities on Andover’s campus,” Jarvis said. “And your father can affect bribery from anywhere in the world.” Jarvis looked down at Tony and added, “You really must keep your swearing under control. Is this the persona you wish to present when accepting your Nobel?”

“Abso-shitting-lutely,” Tony said.

“That’s quite enough,” Jarvis said.

 

**BACK IN MALIBU**

**BACK IN (FORWARD TO?) THE YEAR 2000**

“Well,” Paul says. “That was. Something. It certainly explains…” Paul looks around and motions to the house around them, their seats precarious on a ledge that overlooks the ocean as well as those cliffs Tony promised could wreck their bodies and ensure they were never found. “All this, I suppose.”

“Funny thing,” Tony says. He plays with the cap from his beer bottle so he doesn’t have to look at Paul. “I did, at some point, make a robot and try to name it after my mom, except she made a house rule—no naming stuff after her. She didn’t want to be responsible for whatever my dad’s inventions, or mine, would end up doing. Can’t blame her for that, considering when it comes down to it my dad and I are unscrupulous defense industry opportunists.” 

Tony flicks the cap off the balcony and smiles at Paul. “So that’s why the AI is called Jarvis, that’s why I won’t make him publicly available, and that’s why we have to do this here, working like creeps in the basement of my secret beach house in Malibu. It’s world-changing technology,” Tony says. “I can’t risk this getting out into the world, and that means keeping everything as private and local as possible.”

Paul’s own voice comes out of the speakers built into the deck:

“World-changing technology that you won’t allow to change the world, sir?”

Paul yells in surprise and throws himself onto the deck floor, the better to stop another shock from throwing him down to the jagged cliffs and the ocean below. Tony watches as Paul looks around for the source of his voice, knowing he’ll see nothing but _freaked out_ all the same.

“He’s moved on from running equations to offering philosophical takes on your business ethics?” Paul asks. “Was he _recording us_ the entire time? Gauging my voice and tone as I spoke? How did he learn that so quickly?”

“Jarvis learns by listening and observing so, yeah, that includes storytime here, and everything said since you got here,” Tony says. “Before you got here, months before I started looking for a voice, he’s been running in the background learning.” Tony thinks about it and says, “That’s why no one’s ever around here, no one but Pepper and some very select people.”

“I thought that was because you were an unapproachable asshole,” Paul replies.

“Well, obviously that, but also because Jarvis is listening, he’s learning, and that means...” 

It isn’t that Paul Bettany is _anyone_ to him at all, or that he thinks Paul would go out and break his NDA to report on the eccentric billionaire who has spent days, weeks, possibly years talking to himself in his basement in hopes of breathing life into this thing like no one has ever done before.

No, it means something else, something Tony doesn’t want to put into words.

“It means I sit here and talk to him,” Tony says. “About work, science, business, Pepper, life, _everything_. It’s one thing for a program to have the practical knowledge necessary to make a projectile fly, right? But Jarvis can tell me that I should consider color variations according to the market because of xyz reasons, and that I should do my flight test no later than Monday because the shareholders meet Thursday and my overlords on the board want results Wednesday. Jarvis tells me I should stop a test because my heart rate’s too fast and I’m about to pass out. He reminds me I’ve been working for two days straight on only 600 calories and most of them are useless alcohol calories. Oh! Or that I’m too drunk to science. For what I want to do, what I want to make of Jarvis, he needs to have knowledge of every aspect of what's going on in the world, and he learns by listening.”

And that’s why he didn’t want to tell Paul, or anyone, about Jarvis: so he could avoid the look Paul was giving him, one of unbelievable sadness and pity.

“He’s just a personal assistant,” Tony says.

“Of course,” Paul replies. “He was your butler. I’ve got it now.”


End file.
